


Mother, Maiden, Martyr

by clutzycricket



Series: Pathways and Maybes [3]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, F/M, Grisha Trilogy - Freeform, Grisha Trilogy Fusion, Timeline Shenanigans, Triple Drabble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-30
Updated: 2015-01-30
Packaged: 2018-03-09 16:03:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3255980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clutzycricket/pseuds/clutzycricket
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Firestarter, Illusionist, Sun Summoner... there are always human stories behind the songs, after all, and the stories always get twisted in the telling.</p><p>(Or, I swore I was going to do this AU one day.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mother, Maiden, Martyr

**Author's Note:**

> “Maybe love was superstition, a prayer we said to keep the truth of loneliness at bay.”  
> ― Leigh Bardugo, Ruin and Rising

_**One** _

 

Nymeria’s Children tended to produce Tidemakers above all others, though there were a good amount of Fabricators amongst them.

 

Elia had the (mis)fortune of being an Inferni, who manipulated the air to create fire. Oberyn had created a cunning little flint that she could operate even when the room spun so she could not stand, and word of Elia’s talent reached the King, whose elder son and heir was a Dreamer.

 

He wanted to bring a little fire into the bloodline again, her mother said with a dangerous twist in her smile, rather than Lannister poison.

 

So Elia wed her husband, who was cruel when he meant to be kind, and had to be reminded to explain _why_ he did things, rather than rush off as if the hordes of all seven hells were at his heels.

 

At least she had her children, birthed amidst the _merzost_ -magic of Dragonstone. Rhaenys looked much like her side of the family, with the dark eyes and Oberyn’s imperious way of looking at you as if you were a complete fool, even at three, and Aegon had all of the Targaeryn loveliness with none of the rot, or so she hoped.

 

(After all, Aerys had once been considered charming.)

 

Rhaegar had looked at them both for a long moment when he was presented with his twins, before giving them a tired smile as if he had bled out to nearly the limits of what Ashara’s Healer ability.

 

Elia found out why when the twins were six, playing with companions about their own age. One of them, the youngest Tyrell boy, had run off with one of Aegon’s toys, louding crowing about his little victory. Elia smiled at that, as the boy was younger than her twins, and trying to upstage his younger brothers.

 

Aegon waved his hand in a manner done by all Grisha children, harmless and proof that they were coming into their powers, nothing frightening. Perhaps the boy would get a good soaking- there was something horribly ironic about a Targaryen conjuring water.

 

Except for the shadows that spilled out of his hand, running for the Tyrell boy, stopped by a disc of golden light.

 

“ _Mittys_ ,” Rhaenys snapped, hand up and glittering.

 

Aegon turned horribly, horribly pale, and Elia suddenly knew that her children had been keeping secrets from her.

 

She looked around at the children, at the maids and serving boys, and knew that the whole city would soon know what had just happened.

 

Elia suspected that her husband already knew, that he had known since they were born.

 

Was that why he ran off with the Stark girl, so he could have a normal child? Or perhaps that was why he agreed to marry her- his song of ice and fire, light and shadow?

 

Looking at the children as they gathered around Aegon, not realizing that they should be frightened, she prayed her children would not suffer again for her husband’s dreams.

 

_ **Two** _

 

The Red Keep was run through with shadows and the odd spot of sunlight, Sansa thought, sweeping from the Princess’ solar to the godswood. The Princess had almost absently told her ladies that her Uncle Viserys was visiting friends in Oldstown for a few weeks, and that Ser Arthur was accompanying him.

 

Since the Princess’ Ladies currently consisted of Sansa, Jeyne Westerling, Asha Greyjoy, Margaery Tyrell, and Brienne of Tarth, all of them knew it was to let Sansa know that her steps would not be dogged by a pale shadow, which was for the best, since Myranda Royce had gone off to marry Willas Tyrell two moons past, Asha was still technically a hostage, and Brienne did not do well when dealing with Viserys.

 

Unless Aegon’s opinion counted, which it most certainly did not.

 

She wanted to clear her head before she had to seriously contemplate the fact that her life was going to be changing drastically, and was perhaps not paying as much attention as she should have when she crashed into the young man.

 

She went sprawling, a Tailor’s ability to create beauty not enough to counteract legs that were longer than most ladies and skirts that were thicker and heavier than she had worn for three years.

 

The man was perhaps her height and a few years her elder, perhaps Loras’ age.

 

The dark eyes, so similar to the Princess and the Queen, gave away his identity. She scrambled up to give a rumpled curtsy, feeling her face heat. “My lord prince, I apologize.”

 

He blinked, and she was about to sigh when he said, “Lady Sansa, correct? My cousin has written about you. And her other ladies, of course, but she does like ladies with wit, and who allow her to be quiet and who do not chase after her brothers, which you were apparently cured of quite young…”

 

Sansa was blushing again, at the memory of Aegon and Loras’ practical jape on her twelfth birthday, and Rhaenys furious tirade at them both on her behalf, Jon as a silent support.

 

“I was running away with my mouth again,” he said, blushing himself. “I apologize. Quentyn Martell, at your service.”

 

“As you guessed, I am Sansa Stark,” she said, smiling. “You have a bruise on your cheek.”

 

His hand flew to his face, and he winced. “Training accident. Fabricators are not meant to be knights, I would say, but then Uncle Oberyn…”

 

“I have learned,” she said, trying to hide her bitterness, “that it is better to be a good person than a good knight.” She lifted her hand to his face, using a bit of power to fade the bruise. “As good as new.”

 

“Not that it was much good to begin with,” he muttered, and she turned her brightest smile on him, the one that made even Prince Oberyn stop for a second look.

 

Tailors were very good at working with what was there, and from everything she had heard about Prince Quentyn, he was a good man in need of some confidence.

 

That would be easy enough.

 

“Will you be one of the brave men staying in the city to guard the King and Queen when the Shadow and Sun Summoners journey to the Wall? For you see, I will be staying to tend to the Queen- winter does not agree with so many of you Southron folk, and we do still need to tend to what is here and present while the songs are written…”

 

_**Three** _

__

Rhaenys burrows under so many blankets that she can barely move, Edmure prying her out when she needs to get up, knowing that work will keep her anchored to the world.

 

She can barely stand the dark anymore, counts her maids and nearly spends the entire first night Edmure leaves to deal with the Freys in the Sept, praying to gods she is no longer sure she believes in.

 

(A gift from the gods, she had been called, the Sun Summoner, Princess of Sunlight and Song… a broken woman who could not even get martyrdom right.)

 

She sits in the stained glass windows of the Sept, letting the marble glimmer and colored light slide through her hands and pretends she can feel the warmth curling around her fingers.

 

Edmure understands, she thinks, playing silly jokes and tangling her hair like Asha did when they were children, even sitting through her attempts to work through songs again.

 

She keeps them solemn, mostly, though one day she manages Famous Flower of Serving Men without shaking, and he sweeps her up with a laugh, neither of them allowing themselves to remember the endless night, the songs she sang with her sunlight to keep despair from winning while they curled up in Castle Black, waiting for Dany and her dragons, for miracles and Melisandre’s merzost and the sacrifices…

 

He scowls when she sweetly asks if their first daughter might be named Sovay, after the song, and then he catches her meaning, his eyes lighting up and crowing loud enough she’s fairly certain her goodsisters learn the news from his shouting.

 

(Lady Catelyn, while clever and kind, had looked between her and Edmure with a faint air of puzzlement, prompting her to laugh before the rode on to Castle Black. Afterwords, with Edmure bearing an eyepatch and her sunlight gone, she seemed to understand, and they wed in the sept of Winterfell, and to the seven hells with the King’s Landing service expected of them.)

 

It is when her daughter is a moon old, and crying as if chased by Others, that Rhaenys wakes to find a faint tracery of light twining about her hands, no more than a candle’s glow.

 

She does not tell her husband, just yet, but sends one word to her twin, now king with black scars up his arms and his rose queen to keep him humble.

 

_Mittys._

  
After all, it truly looked like she could not even get martyrdom right.

**Author's Note:**

> Mittys, by the way, is High Valyarian for "fool" or idiot.


End file.
